SEPTA M-3

The M-3 was a fleet of 270 stainless steel rapid transit cars that the Budd Company built in 1960 for the Market-Frankford Line in Philadelphia, replacing the Market and Frankford cars of the line's early decades. The Philadelphia Transportation Company numbered them as classes A-49, A-50 and A-51, and SEPTA redesignated them all as Class M-3 when it took over the line. Cars 601 to 646 were singles and cars 701 to 924 ran as pairs. Riders nicknamed them Almond Joys because their ventilation fan housings looked like the almonds on the candy bar. Their wheel frame assemblies caused a violent shaking ride, and only car 614 was ever air conditioned, though the fan housings had provisions for it. Budd licensed the stainless steel design to Tokyu Car Corporation of Japan, which built its 7000 series from it, and it formed the basis of a never-built New York R39 order. The M-4 cars delivered from 1997 replaced them, the last were scrapped by 2005, and cars 606 and 618 survive in museums.